The local ombudsman brigade often extolls the virtues of the Maltese ombudsman institution. Professing admiration for its work, the brigade laments the way the Office of the Ombudsman is treated disrespectfully by the government.
Rewind to September 2002, when the country witnessed a sad spectacle of ombudsman-bashing that shook the institution to its very core. At the time, I was corporate affairs manager in the Office of the Ombudsman and witnessed events at close quarters.
Twenty years later, it is fitting to revive those dark weeks.
On July 31, 1995, the House of Representatives nominated Joseph Sammut as Malta’s first ombudsman. On November 15, 1995, the Ombudsman Act came fully into force and the Office of the Ombudsman started to receive its first complaints. The House approved Sammut’s reappointment for a second term on July 14, 2000.
The first years were highly successful and the institution soon became one of Malta’s most trusted as thousands asked the ombudsman to address their grievances against public authorities.
Virtually midway through his second term, however, the ombudsman felt that, although an officer of parliament, he was not receiving the backing of the House.
In an interview on September 1, 2002, in The Malta Independent on Sunday, the ombudsman hit hard at maladministration, discrimination as well as lack of accountability. He backed citizens with justified but unresolved grievances and was critical of promotions in the AFM; the recruitment of workers by Air Malta; the lands, inland revenue and pensions departments for their insensitivity towards citizens; and ineffective action by MEPA against illegal construction.
In a press release, the government called the ombudsman’s statements “highly inappropriate”, “inexplicable” and “gratuitous” and hoped that his “harmful outburst” had not caused too much damage to his office. The ombudsman lost no time to assert that he stood firmly by his interview.
The opposition joined the fray and, in the sitting on September 16, 2002, presented a motion for the House to adjourn and discuss the government’s statement which was an attack against the integrity of the ombudsman.
Throughout the five sessions, the government side laid siege on Sammut. The opposition, in turn, shed rivers of tears to protect him and professed admiration at his steadfastness.
Then prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami led the charge, tearing mercilessly at the ombudsman’s credentials. His interview – he thundered – was objectionable, not least in its political flavour. The ombudsman had no right to enter the political fray. His statement that the government’s explanations on an unresolved grievance were “unbelievable” formed part of a series of unwarranted remarks that did nothing to enhance the respect due to his office.
Ombudsman Joseph Sammut continued to promote standards of good governance, transparency and fairness that, two decades later, the country still fails to respect- Michael Sant
The ombudsman was not “the depository of truth” and needed to understand that he did not possess the gift of infallibility. An arrogant ombudsman had no right to subject MPs to censure by the media.
Fenech Adami deplored the ombudsman’s comment that the award of promotions in the AFM was a “mess”. As former head of the civil service he had witnessed at close hand the improvements in AFM procedures for promotions under Fenech Adami’s stewardship compared to the previous administration.
Exerting further pressure, the prime minister referred to the ombudsman’s comments on justified yet unresolved complaints. The government turned down his recommendations in only 10 cases – a “negligible” amount – compared to hundreds of sustained grievances that were honoured.
In any event, he rumbled, procedures in the Ombudsman Act on these grievances were followed and, at the end, the government told the ombudsman that his recommendations would not be implemented “because he was wrong. He put forward his arguments; we did not share his views; and that’s it.”
Fenech Adami dismissed the ombudsman’s warning that Malta’s reputation in international ombudsman circles would suffer if the International Ombudsman Institute would know how his office was being treated. He did not in the least care about the reaction of the institute.
In November 2002, I attended a month-long training programme at the École Nationale d’Administration in Paris organised by the Médiateur de la République. In the opening session, hearing that I came from Malta, then Médiateur and former minister M. Bernard Stasi wryly exclaimed: “Malta!! I understand your government has not covered itself in glory in the way it dealt with Monsieur Sammut. Quite undignified, really sad!”
Government ministers beat the same drum. Then minister Tonio Borg warned the ombudsman was no sacred cow and the administration had every right to respond to this provocation. He would readily turn down recommendations by the ombudsman that were unreasoned.
Another minister, Francis Zammit Dimech recalled that, as a top civil servant, Sammut worked closely with prime minister Dom Mintoff and implied that this coloured the tone of his interview. And then minister Austin Gatt held that Sammut entered the political arena and could not expect to remain unscathed.
For its part, the opposition claimed that the government’s attack was intended to keep the ombudsman from any further pronouncements on governance issues that hurt hundreds of citizens. The Ombudsman Act allowed him full scope to address these issues and his relationship with parliament by any means, including the media.
The way in which the government attacked Sammut and tore into his persona was outrageous. The contempt heaped upon him and the government’s hysterical response to his interview sought to intimidate him.
Sammut soldiered on and continued to promote standards of good governance, transparency and fairness that, two decades later, the country still fails to respect.
Sammut completed his term of office as ombudsman on July 31, 2005 and never again set foot inside the office.
From that date, the institution started its gradual decline towards virtual insignificance and became a haven for octogenarians under the baton of an éminence grise who, well beyond his sell-by date, continues to lurk imperiously in the wings of the office.
Michael Sant was manager, corporate affairs, at the Office of the Ombudsman from 2002 to 2013.